The new edition of this popular book of text, cases and materials on family law, as well as providing a firm grounding in family law, sets the law in its social and historical context and encourages a critical approach by students. Legal principle is set against a background which explores, primarily from a feminist perspective, some of the assumptions relating to gender, sexual orientation, class and culture underlying the law.

It examines the ideology of the family and, in particular, the role of the law in contributing to and reproducing that ideology. Structured around the themes of welfare, equality and family privacy, the book aims to offer the benefits of a textbook while giving students a wide-ranging set of materials for classroom discussion, and uses the case method to demonstrate how various issues might be resolved.